Jun 28 2013

UoSAT-1 – OSCAR-9 story in Daily Mail Newspaper Archive

UoSAT-1 – OSCAR 9 and Team

The Daily Mail newspaper archive from 1896 to 2004 is now available online and contains a wealth of stories about amateur radio and amateur radio satellites such as UoSAT-1 (also known as UoSAT-OSCAR-9 or UO-9) built at the University of Surrey in Guildford.

The amateur radio satellite UoSAT-1, built by Martin Sweeting G3YJO and his team, featured in a Daily Mail story The men who put a dream in space published Tuesday, October 13, 1981. The story is written with a sexist slant, sadly all too common at the time, saying “Every schoolboy can circle Earth with the Guildford satellite”. Apparently the Daily Mail didn’t want schoolgirls to listen to the satellite.

One of the many amateur radio stories the newspaper published is Amateur Radio Triumph that appeared on Friday, November 16, 1928. It describes the first Transatlantic contact between the UK and the USA which took place on the 28 MHz (10m) band.

Free access to the Daily Mail archive is only available until July 20, 2013 at
http://www.galeuk.com/trials/dailymail-opentrial/

Try searching for Amateur Radio or UoSAT or Marconi.

You can save the stories to your PC by selecting 100% zoom then doing a right-hand mouse click on the story and selecting Save Image As in Firefox or Save Picture As in Internet Explorer.

The UoSAT-1 Technical Handbook lists these contributors to the project:
Telecommand System and Flight Configuration – Dr. Martin Sweeting G3YJO, UOS/AMSAT-UK
Power Systems – Jerzy Slowikowski, UOS/AMSAT-UK
Telemetry – Dr. Lui Mansi, UOS/AMSAT-UK
Data Beacons – Bob Haining, UOS/AMSAT-UK
Antenna Systems – Tony Brown, UOS/AMSAT-UK
Navigation Magnetometer – Christine Sweeting G6APF, UOS/AMSAT-UK
Spacecraft Microcomputers – Chris Haynes, UOS/AMSAT-UK
HF Beacons – Colin Smithers G4CWH, UOS/AMSAT-UK
CCD Camera Imaging – Dr Paul Taylor, UOS/AMSAT-UK

30th Anniversary of UoSAT-1 (OSCAR-9)
https://amsat-uk.org/2011/10/12/30th-anniversary-of-uosat-1-oscar-9/

UoSAT-2 – OSCAR-11 still transmitting after 29 years in orbit
https://amsat-uk.org/2013/05/08/oscar-11-still-transmitting-after-29-years/

May 8 2013

Amateur radio satellite OSCAR-11 still transmitting after 29 years in orbit

UoSAT-2 / OSCAR-11 with Dave Brock UoS kneeling, Christine Sweeting G6APF and Neville Bean G8NOB

Mike Rupprecht DK3WN reports receiving a good signal from the amateur radio microsatellite UoSAT-OSCAR-11 on 145.826 MHz FM (AFSK 1200 bps ASCII), see his blog at http://www.dk3wn.info/p/?p=33395

UOSAT-2 / OSCAR-11 1984 Martin Sweeting G3YJO and Dave Bocks UoS standing

UoSAT-2 / OSCAR-11 Martin Sweeting G3YJO and Dave Bocks UoS standing

UoSAT-2, also known as UoSAT-OSCAR-11 or UO-11, was the second satellite designed and built by a team of engineers at the University of Surrey in Guildford, Surrey, UK and was the successor to UoSAT-1 / UoSAT-OSCAR-9 (see Hobby Electronics August 1981). It was launched from the Western Test Range at Vandenberg Air Base, in Lompoc, California along with LANDSAT-5 on a Delta 3920 rocket on March 1, 1984.

OSCAR-11 was the most rapidly designed OSCAR, going from inception to launch in only five months. It was also the first amateur satellite to carry a digital communications package into Earth orbit, and the first to be controlled by a CPU running software written in the high-level programming language “Forth”.

OSCAR-11 carries beacons in three amateur radio bands.

The 145.826 MHz beacon transmits FM Audio Frequency Shift Keying (AFSK) 1200 bps ASCII data. It the early years it also transmitted a voice message from the digitalker experiment.

The 435.025 MHz beacon transmitted either 1200 bps FM AFSK or 4800 bps PSK data. This beacon was used to downlink information from the Digital Store and Readout (DSR) Experiment, which includes CCD Earth image data, results from the Particle Wave Experiment, and engineering data from the RCA COSMAC 1802 CPU.

The 2401.5 MHz beacon transmitted FM and PSK signals. Antenna polarization for all three beacon transmitters is left-hand circular (LHCP). Only the 145.826 MHz beacon is now operational.

Addition OSCAR-11 information http://www.g3cwv.co.uk/oscar11.htm

OSCAR-9 and OSCAR-11 TV News Reports
https://amsat-uk.org/2011/10/30/oscar-9-and-oscar-11-tv-news-reports/

BBC Micro ASTRID UoSAT receiver and AMSAT-UK Software Library
https://amsat-uk.org/2011/12/11/bbc-micro-and-amsat-uk-software-library/